


let the rhythm change your world on the floor

by freezingnightclub



Category: Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Uprising
Genre: Circuit Sex, F/M, M/M, Mind Control, don’t go to an evil rave with your friends and have sexual tension, drugs (sort of?), maybe dubcon but it’s more like they’re all drunk, sort of bad end? not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 15:26:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19337305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freezingnightclub/pseuds/freezingnightclub
Summary: State of Mind, but it went a little differently. Beck, Zed, and Mara find their rhythm.





	1. 0.1

The Renegade handed Zed the wing sail attachment, looking at him doubtfully from behind the helmet. 

“You sure you’re up for this? You ever flown with one of these before?” Beck knew Zed hadn’t, of course, but there was no reason the Renegade would know that, so he kept it to himself.

“Oh, totally,” Zed said, clearly trying to look confident. “I do it all the time.”

“Well, here’s a tip—land with your arms and legs out and keep your feet moving,” Beck replied, looking over the edge of the dirigible at the gas-enshrouded crowd below. “And keep your helmet on. You don’t want to breathe any of that stuff in.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I just need to get down there, find Mara, and get out of here. I’ll let you know when I find her.” He undocked his disk and brought up a hologram piece which he passed to Beck. “My ping number, so you know who’s messaging you. Don’t go giving that out. Jeez, I can’t believe I’m out here giving the Renegade my number. This doesn’t mean we’re friends, you know—“

“Just get going already!” Beck said, adjusting the attachment on Zed’s back. “There. You’re all set. Go get ‘em, or whatever. And remember, don’t t—“ But Zed had already jumped off the dirigible, and by the looks of it, was fumbling through the air. Beck heard a shriek as his friend fell into the orange fog, and he rolled his eyes.

Time to go find the controls on this ship, then.

—-

After plenty of flailing and a rough tumble to the ground, Zed landed on top of a crowded cluster of red-eyed programs all dancing and shouting like nobody’s business. He immediately tensed and reached for his disc but found himself moving on their shoulders and hands to an open patch of the square. They must’ve assumed he was another partygoer, crowdsurfing on the same euphoric wave. Zed silently thanked the population of Argon for being so easily distracted.

The golden-orange fog in Argon Square was so thick that he could barely see the entrance, but what he could see, flashing brightly, were dozens of screens blasting various Occupation propaganda clips. He frowned. It was low-quality stuff, much of it videos that had been played before at Occupation speeches and events, yet it had the crowd whipped up into a frenzy. And everywhere, everywhere that pulsing music. 

Whatever was in that smoke stuff must be powerful, he thought.

Zed saw a flash of red-orange hair a few feet away, but lost it in the sea of dancing programs. He tried to push through the group flailing around directly in front of him. It took him a bit, a decent amount of shouting, and a couple of whacks to the shoulder, but he made it to the other side. He leaned over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. He wasn’t as used to exerting himself with the helmet on—it made things difficult. Absently, he wondered how the Renegade got so accustomed to it.

He caught sight of that flash in the fog again and dashed towards her, finally catching up. Mara was swaying and pumping her fist to the music, her wide eyes like a flame, absolutely absorbed by the show around her. The golden screen-light gave her face an odd shadow.

“ZED! You made it!” She dove for him, wrapping him up in a hug. He’d normally be all about this, but something in him told him Mara’s enthusiasm was more from whatever contaminant she’d ingested and the flashing lights around them than anything else. He hugged her back, still, but backed off a little. He noticed Bartik and Hopper behind her dancing with one another, looking similarly red-eyed and ecstatic, pulling off moves he wouldn’t expect the usually serious pair to dare.

But Mara leaned in closer, still dancing and bobbing her head to the beat. 

“Isn’t this amazing?” she gushed, pausing her movement for a second to stare up at the displays walling in the square. In front of them the triangular platform that held the orb blasting music flashed slogans across its sides. “I’m so glad Clu created this for our city…” 

Yeah, there it was. Zed winced. “Preeeetty sure he didn’t have anything personal to do with this, Mara, he’s probably busy yelling at his officers to ruin everybody’s lives, or whatev—“

She cut him off. “ZED! How could you say something like that! The occupation has our best interests at heart…Can’t you see?” She spun around, red hair whirling in front of her face, and gestured around at the celebrating crowd. “They’re making everything better, for everyone! All of us programs should know that.” 

She put her hand up to her mouth and giggled, still dancing, and reached for Zed’s arm with her other hand.

“Maybe you just need to let yourself go a little! You’ll see!” And she pulled him into a cluster of programs who were bouncing in time to the beat. He struggled against her grip, but she was oddly stronger than he was—he wondered if that was a side effect of the gas.

Mara threw her head back and whooped as she danced, her face a mask of joy. Surrounded by the others and their wild movements, Zed couldn’t help but sway a little himself. The sway became a jump or two and in barely any time at all he was pumping his fist with the rest of them, as Mara grinned back in his direction.

He let her beckon him closer, and they moved opposite of one another, in as close to sync as he could muster (as he had never been much good at dancing.) She grabbed his hand again, and spun around, taking him with her, and he obliged, letting her pull him into a whirlwind of glowing-lined limbs and flailing bodies.

Zed let her lead, and found that as they danced her hands kept finding their way to graze his circuits—not the most hidden ones, but still, more than they would normally. And he realized absently that he really didn’t mind that—in fact, when she put her hands on his hips and moved him with the music, he reciprocated. He felt a growing blush behind the visor of his helmet as the two of them swayed with each other.

“See? You’re having fun, aren’t you?” Mara said, letting go of his waist to do some odd dance move. “Now do you believe me?” she shouted over the thumping bass.

“What?” Zed said, disoriented.

“You look dizzy!” she said, leaning in towards him again. “Why’ve you got your helmet on anyway? Isn’t it hot in there?” She giggled again, in that infectious way he could never resist.

“Wait, I—“ but she was already reaching behind his neck to find the button that would derez his helmet, and he oddly found that he wasn’t pulling away.

The visor retracted and suddenly the world around him was so much brighter and louder than before, golden light beaming into his vision like an explosion, music pumping in louder than he’d ever heard. He gasped, involuntarily, in surprise—barely having a second to realize “baaaaad move, Zed”—-and suddenly he really felt dizzy.

For a second, he wasn’t sure where he was, who he was, or who was holding him up, or where the pulsating sound and blinding lights were coming from. Then it just...all started to fall into place. The physical part, first—it was just him and the movement of a thousand others, in perfect synchronization with the sound, each separate but somehow connected.

Mara, red-haired and wonderful, was reaching for him, the tips of her fingers pressing down on the circuits on his upper arm, and he shivered, smiling dazedly, certain he was turning pink at the touch. He felt her move behind him, hands around his waist, then let her tilt his chin up to look up at the screens—and oh, he saw them.

Something in his body just sort of went slack as he stared, open-mouthed, at the flashing lightshow around him. Phrases and images and the giant projected silhouette of their Luminary, all streaming in at a speed he couldn’t fight, and didn’t really want to fight. Mara held him up, nuzzling her chin against his shoulder and swaying with him.

Zed laughed, despite himself. It was all so simple. Why hadn’t he figured it out before? 

“Do you get it now, Zed?” Mara hummed, close to his ear, her hair brushing against his face, the subtle glow of her eyes illuminating his cheek.

“I—-“ He blinked, remembering quickly how words worked. “Yes! I..Yes, I do! It’s…” He paused, struggling to find a description.

“...perfect, right?” She helpfully filled in, and something clicked in his head, more than it had before.

“....Yeah.”


	2. 0.2

Beck irritatedly checked his messages for an OK from Zed. What was taking him so long? He had already set a few bombs on the dirigible that would explode it at his signal, but he was having trouble finding the control room that would steer it towards the flashing tower in the distance. He didn’t want to leave without knowing his friends were okay, though. 

Was he going to have to go down there himself? He blinked, realizing—there was NO way he could wear his Renegade suit anywhere near that crowd. Even from this high up, he could see that they were being manipulated into a frenzy; one look at him and they’d go wild with rage, and he’d end up derezzed or worse. He deactivated the disc attachment, returning to plain old Beck, but kept his helmet on. There was no way he was going in unprotected.

He grabbed a wing sail and jumped, much more smoothly than Zed had. Change of plan. He wasn’t thinking too clearly, but he figured he’d somehow get up to the ship again once he’d made sure they were both safe. Or maybe he wouldn’t right away—maybe he’d just try and disable the DJ booth. That would stop the party, right? At least then the crowd of programs wouldn’t be as hyped up, and he could escape to disable the tower easily. He had options, he told himself, and tried to push the rising anxiety in his throat back down.

He landed and started looking for the two programs, but struggled to pick them out of the crowd. Everyone was moving rhythmically to the music, arms waving and circuits blazing with extra energy. If it weren’t for all the propaganda videos, Beck would’ve thought it all looked pretty fun.

He shook his head. None of that now, he was on a mission. 

Some of the programs near him had started chanting something, but he couldn’t really make it out—he assumed it was some Occupation garbage. He wove his way around the cluster, disc in hand but not ignited, visor firmly down over his face. The ubiquitous yellow fog swirled with every motion.

On the other side of the cluster was another, and another, all bouncing to the music. He’d never seen so many programs dancing in one place before. They were so  _ into it _ , as if connected to some central impulse—he had the odd feeling that though each one of them was technically independent, they were all synced to something somewhere—probably the tower’s flashing, he realized, looking out towards the western quadrant where the tip of it was visible. Sure enough, it matched up—music, the movements, the shouting—all in perfect synchronization. 

Beck found himself bopping a bit as he moved through the crowd, despite himself. The music  _ was _ catchy. He shook his head a little, and swayed to the side as he turned a corner around  another circle of programs. Finally after what seemed like ages, he ran right into Mara, her hair somehow bright red-orange.

“Whoa...Mara, is that you?” he said, trying to sound the normal amount of surprised. Was it a trick of the light? As Mara turned around, he was sure it wasn’t. Zed hadn’t told him it’d progressed this far...But then again, none of the other programs around them had spontaneously orange hair, so Mara must’ve done that part herself.

“Beck??” Mara jumped and ran towards him. “Oh I’m  _ so _ glad you’re here!!! Zed and I were just looking for you!” She twirled a strand of that fiery hair in between her fingers, and half-closed her eyes. “Isn’t this all so wonderful? When Clu fixes the Grid everything will be this perfect…” She sighed.

“Zed’s here? Where is he?” Beck tried to suppress his alarm at his friend acting so jarringly loyal to the Occupation. 

“He’s here!” And she yanked on a hand sticking out of a bunch of dancing programs, and retrieved Zed, who—oh,  _ users— _ had his helmet off and was dancing along with the rest of them.

“Hiiiiii Beck!” Zed swayed as he stepped out of the cluster, blinking glowing reddened eyes at his friend. “Isn’t this great? Ahahaha…” His expression was softened and dazed, and he leaned close to Mara, fingers intertwined with hers. A few spots on his circuitry were noticeably pink.

Okay, now THAT was weird. Did they hook up while he wasn’t looking? What was  _ in _ this gas?

“Are you...okay, Zed? Aren’t you supposed to be...going somewhere?” Beck chose his words carefully, not wanting to conflate his two identities. This would, after all, be the literal worst place to do it.

“Yeah! Yeah...Listen Beck, I think I’ve had a change of heart, about this whole thing! Mara showed me, ysee...The Occupation is handling things great around here! They’re only trying to look out for us, and...and I can’t blame them for that, yknow, especially when…” and he giggled, “they’ve put together something like  _ this _ —hey!” He flinched as Mara ran a teasing finger up one of his side circuits, then he shivered, an orange-tinged blush visible in the golden light.

Damn, Beck thought, they got him good.

“No, I think we’re  _ going _ ,” Beck said firmly, grabbing his two friends by the wrist and pulling them towards an alleyway exit leading out of Argon Square. They protested, but mostly allowed him to guide them, though they continued dancing and jumping the whole way to the alley.

Just as he was about to pull them out, Beck felt them stop, and strangely felt Zed flip his grip around to pull Beck towards him. The three of them stumbled through a cluster of dancers, Zed whooping and laughing, Mara clinging a bit to Beck’s arm, just a bit closer than usual.

Zed was suddenly right in front of him, egging him on into a dance, hand creeping up Beck’s arm towards his upper arm and a circuit lining it. Mara was behind him, weaving her arms around and putting a hand on his waist. Beck considered pulling away, but didn’t, for some reason—something about it all felt right, felt like it should be. A jolt of energy was beginning to build in his core, something warm and strong, and he leaned into it all, letting Mara spin him around. Zed was now at his back moving in a way that felt suspiciously like he was thrusting his hips against him, and Beck felt himself glowing.

He was so giddy with all the movement around him and the sensation of his friends touching him and dancing with him, he barely noticed Zed reaching around to tap the helmet release button on the back of his neck. Mara had her hands on his chest now, moving her head to the beat, and with his face exposed, she leaned in to kiss him. The kiss was charged with energy, dizzying and red, and Zed was there too, his mouth on Beck’s neck, searching for a circuit. 

“Guys...I…” Beck tried to make sense of all the data coming in, of the sensation of his friends’ hands on him. The beat was deep in his head, and that golden fog was  _ everywhere _ , oppressive—no, not oppressive, he heard himself think,  _ protective _ , all-encompassing, surrounding…

Why were they so far from the center, anyway? Where had they been going? He shook his head, dazed. Something in him so  _ wanted _ to be right here, amidst the dancers, entwined with his friends breathing this strange air. He stared at the spherical DJ booth with its flashing slogans, feeling something inside him synchronize inexorably with its rhythm.

Beck felt a hand on his cheek. “You doing alright, Beck?” Mara said, blinking those sweet red eyes, tilting her head at him. 

“We can stop if you want, Beck,” Zed said, letting go of his waist. “Really.”

“No, no no, it’s okay, I just—Don’t stop,“ Beck whined and found himself moving back to try and find Zed’s hands again, increasingly desperate for that touch. He was dizzy, lost in his own motion, letting the music take control.

“It’s a lot, isn’t it?” Mara’s hands were everywhere. She and Zed were on either side of him now, touches both diving down to below his waist, to where he really was feeling it right now, stimulating circuits he usually kept hidden. He made a sound that was quite embarrassing. 

“Y-Yeah…” He was sure half his circuits had flushed pink by this point. His friends were absolutely spoiling him.

“Just watch, okay? You don’t have to worry.” And she tilted his head up to stare at the screen displays, all blasting a thousand messages, a thousand tones of golden light, a silhouetted figure standing imposingly on a platform, arms raised in proclamation.

Oh.

He felt something in him shift, and it felt… _ great. _ He wasn’t sure he could even put words to it, the change, but he was suddenly so  _ certain _ that everything was just as it should be, that here, between his two best friends as Mara traced a circuit from his thigh to his groin, and Zed kept rubbing against him from behind, was exactly where he was meant to be.

This was perfection.

Beck let go, floating on the feeling, letting Mara and Zed continue to take the lead. They moved like one being, simultaneously touching and swaying to the rhythm, Mara leaning close against his chest to cover as much of his circuitry as she could. She found a particularly sensitive cluster and pressed her lips against it, and Beck threw his head back on reflex and nearly hit Zed in the face. He tried to stutter an apology but Zed just grinned, eyes that perfect red, and pulled him in for a kiss over his shoulder.

He was starting to have trouble determining who was touching what, and eventually stopped thinking about it altogether, letting the warm electric sensations take him over. Every so often he’d feel a surge of energy more potent than he could take, as one of his friends stroked him right where he needed it, and he’d involuntarily buck his hips into their hands, still on beat with the music.

It was all so much feeling, so much flooding into him, that he felt he might burst with light. The flashing in his mind was brighter than anything he’d ever seen, the shapes and messages on the screen everywhere within and without at the same time, and as both his friends pressed down hard between his legs, he cried out—

—and he was suddenly overloading, right there between the two of them, eyes (nice and red now) and circuitry (very pink) flushed as the excess energy flooded off. His head lolled to the side and Mara made sure he didn’t collapse as he struggled not to fall into reboot. He felt the softness of her hair against his cheek, and felt Zed’s nimble hands keeping him steady.

Offhandedly, as his systems faded, he wondered why they hadn't all just done this earlier.

——

They’d found a quieter corner to sit in as the party died down, and had become entwined with one another, none of them really pushing towards anything, just absently touching and kissing and holding each other close. Beck looked up at his friends as he lay in Zed’s lap, and smiled dizzily. 

They watched the rectangular dirigible still floating high above in the sky turn away from the square, flying a bit shakily, yet still moving strong, leaving a trail of that lovely golden smoke in its wake. The videos in the square had long turned off (though Beck still felt like they were playing in his mind, and could see flashes of them when he closed his eyes) and so, with the lack of other interesting things to stare at, they watched as intently as their clouded minds could as the ship drove itself directly into a flashing tower in the near distance. There was an explosion of brightness, and then all was as it was before.

Beck blinked, confused, and looked around, finding himself tangled up with Mara and Beck on a bench just outside of Argon Square. How did he get here? The last thing he remembered was diving down off the dirigible to rescue Zed...Not that he was complaining—he felt  _ nice _ right now.

It didn’t take much deduction to realize what must’ve gone down between him and his two best friends, and what the cause must’ve been, but he still tried to put the pieces together. He rolled out of Zed’s lap, startling Mara—why was her hair orange?—and checked his disc, making sure he still had the deactivated Renegade attachment clipped on. Good, nothing had happened to it. Well, in that case, it mustn’t have been too bad. He felt his shoulders relax.

He returned to Tron’s outlands fortress once the upcycle came around, before work. Tron had said he wanted to work on Beck’s stealth skills, and he was all prepared to get right into the training when his mentor tilted his head quizzically at him.

“Beck, is that a hickey?”

His cheeks flushed with blue blush. Dammit, he hadn’t checked, had he? He felt his hand move up to the spot and sure enough felt a rough patch on his neck.

“Eh…I went out last night? I have a life, you know,” he said. Well, it wasn’t exactly a lie. 

“You do what you want,” Tron said, pausing to retrieve some training equipment, “you just make sure to be careful; I don’t want you getting...compromised by the enemy.” His mentor rolled his eyes in an obvious “kids these days” gesture.

Beck tried to suppress a giggle. Compromised indeed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever since I saw State of Mind my brain has just been like “okay...but what if...consider this.” I am sorry.


End file.
